‘Do what you think is necessary, I’m with you. We’ve gone a long way together, we’ll deal with everything if we play by your rules. I’m proud we’re working as a team,’ the Balkan said and stood up to go give his teammate a hug. That was completely unexpected coming from Dimitar. At first the Iranian military felt awkward since so far no one but his family had showed him their appreciation for him. ‘It’s going to be a tough fight, don’t let your feelings cloud your decision–that’s how you’ll take us out of here,’ the Lieutenant finished his thought. Omar nodded and headed out the door. Despite Milev’s advice, at that moment he realized how important one particular person was to him so he decided to call them. He went into one of the offices which was prepared for him, sat down on the leather couch and dialed his wife’s number.
‘Hallo,’ the Arabian beauty responded in a tender voice.
‘How are you? I know it’s early, but I wanted to hear you.’
‘I’m fine, ijust woke the kids up, the tutor is coming in a while for their first lesson and they need to be ready. When did you leave, I didn’t hear you go out?’ his loving wife asked.
‘It was still dark, must’ve been six o’clock.’
‘My dear hard-working husband! You don’t sleep just so you get a little more done. I love you!’ she uttered and melted his heart.
‘I love you, too, honey,’ Omar said. ‘I have a request for you.’
‘What is it, darling?’
‘I think it’s getting dangerous for you and the children. Pack all the luggage you can and wait for me. I’ll come pick you up at six.’
‘But where are we going?’ Kalila asked astounded.
‘You’ll see, just do as I asked,’ her husband said.
‘All right, we’ll ready ourselves and wait for you with the luggage, I promise. I have to go now, the children aren’t even dressed yet.’
‘Good, I’ll call you later, tell the little ones I love them.’
‘I will, bye, honey,’ she said and the line went dead. Omar put the phone on his desk. The TV remote controller was there, too, so he took it and turned the news on. All channels were broadcasting live the same thing–the Berlin Supreme Court and the trial against Konrad. He surfed through dozens of channels with little interest and chanced upon some not really famous Arabian channel which had prioritized another event. Something much more important than the law suit in the German capital. All around the globe the military who were guarding the already torn down walls were now running for their lives although they were instructed to shoot on sight. The multinational disobedience followed. All rebels got under a massive shower of bullets, yet they were like a tidal wave that could not be stopped. Armed with whatever it could be used as a weapon the population flooded the Forbidden Land in a grand attack. There were armed civilians here and there who fired at the law enforcement officers and tipped the scales considerably in favor of the invaders; in the end they finally defeated those who restricted their freedom.
Omar was stunned by the scenes. The people broke the shackles of power and headed for the central parts of the city, but instead of setting forth their demands, they engaged in plundering, killing and raping. Mexico City and many other giegapolises were thus turned into battle fields. Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan followed the example and tore down the walls. Brazil did not fall behind in the general wave of bloody attacks–the police and the military in Rio de Janeiro were crushed down by the countless citizens from the suburbs. The revolution rose up like a wild lone predator, starved to death and reduced to scragginess by an illness that had just struck it, yet which it had managed to defeat. That was the birth and the spreading of the first worldwide civil war, but the question here was whether the other cities would follow suit. What happened next was the worst possible, completely uncontrollable development. There were no syndicates to mediate between the authorities and the protesters. There was no one to calm the population down or to call for peaceful actions. Not a single soul. Those gigapolises could only suffer one possible destiny–to be dissolved from any sort of political system and administrative management. They were slowly going to be plunged into ruin and destruction like the ancient Pompeii, the difference being that it was not being swamped by mud and volcanic ash, yet by the blood of the contemporary people who were looking for justice, medicines and, above all, food. No one offered them any alternatives, only fear and bulwarks. Our society was falling apart at the seams and that set the beginning of the dusk of the modern civilization . . .
The Iranian heaved himself out of his chair abruptly, appalled at the brutality of the frames filled with violence and revolution.
‘It’s begun!’ he told himself aloud and the serene morning did a 180. He quickly left the room and went to find Phillip. The Croatian was on guard–involved in the organization of the daily drill. Standing in front of an entire battalion, neat, in a well-ironed uniform, like a true commander, he was giving the men instructions how to carry out the practice later on. But suddenly Omar showed up out of the blue, panting and overexcited. Mirkovich got startled not knowing what could have happened and cut short his explanation.
‘Come with me, now!’ The General pulled him away to tell him the news. ’It’s begun! You have to organize everything for tonight. Get the planes ready, we’re leaving at midnight.’
‘Yes, Sir!’ Mirkovich said and headed back to his people to announce the change of plan.
Omar ran for the lodging buildings where the romantic couple had just risen and was drinking their coffee undisturbed.
‘In my office, now, I want you there in five minutes,’ he said, bursting in without knocking and then leaving for the headquarters. Harry and Alice were sitting peacefully, unaware of what was happening; they had to jump up and put their clothes on so they could get to Saadi’s office on time.
Omar got into his office and found Milev waiting for him, sitting by the desk.
‘Did you see it, your sign?’ Dimitar asked.
‘Yes, and I summoned the lovebirds, they must be here any minute now.’
‘Are we ready?’ the Bulgarian asked another question.
‘Why wouldn’t we? You have doubts?’
‘No I just wanted to hear it from you,’ he said, smiling. The other two joined them in a minute.
‘We have a code orange situation!’ Al Nadir’s commander-in-chief said and looked at the three people standing across from him and paused. ‘We’re preparing everything for tonight,’ the Iranian General declared decidedly and his co-conspirators sat at the desk by him. ‘First of all, let’s talk where each of us will be over again. Rogers and I will be on the flight commander, governing the entire operation. We’ll be flying close by until we get to the German base, then we’ll start to circle around, and wait for the fall of the base. Harry will take care of the communication, the control over the satellites and our undetectable transportation. Milev–you’ll be leading the offensive on American soil, Alice–you’ll be operating on the Chinese front. Our Croatian friend will be dealing with the Russians. Questions?’ He allocated the tasks as a head of the organization.
‘I have a question,’ Harry piped up unexpectedly. ‘What if one of us fails? What happens then?’
‘You’ll follow the plan through anyway. There’s no going back. Understood?’ The Iranian General was unyielding. The three of them nodded. The worst of all was the feeling the two lovers felt at the thought they were not going to be together and if something went awry, they might not see each other ever again. Alice felt a small knot of uneasiness inside her stomach; alternating warm and cold waves washed over her. The situation now was different. At that point in her life she already had someone to think about, someone to worry about. But she was a tough girl, a girl nursed with the scent of war. Harry, too, was saddened by the prospect of forever being deprived of his better half, but there was one other thing that also robbed him of his peace of mind–doubt. Was he going to live up to the role he was assigned? Things did not boil down to stealing money or falsifying
papers electronically, but to a worldwide offensive. The qualms he felt fed him with hesitation and insecurity. Yet he knew that if he obeyed Omar’s orders, he and everyone on the mission would survive.
‘You are right. We’ll succeed and there si no going back’. Said Milev
‘All of you, listen closely. The ships are staffed with pilots, but just so we’re on the safe side, you’ll be accompanied by back-up teams. Don‘t forget the meeting point where we have to pick up the civilians–they will be waiting at the location we sent them: the valleys of the Austrian Alps. Once we’ve done our job in the German base, one of the ships will go back to gather the rest of the men and equipment from Al Nadir. We’ll be acting fast and we’ll load the spoils for a few minutes. After we’re done, we’ll leave the planet’s atmosphere. No one is going to wait for the others when we take off, we’ll meet at the Moon’s orbit–there the pilots will input Menoetius as a target destination. Short and sweet. I wish us good luck–both the gentlemen and the lady,’ the General outlined his final instructions and encouraged his accomplices. . .
They still had a lot of work to do, yet the time was flying. But perhaps they were going to have just enough of it if they mobilized their men to depart at 00:00 h. Nine planes were scheduled to leave the ground at that hour: a flight commander equipped with everything necessary for running the operation and eight more which were to veer off in twos towards each of the four bases. Underneath them, built deep into the ground, lay hidden the five ginormous machines aimed to realize the first interplanetary passage.
At the same time in another country things looked even tenser. In the cradle of the European modern civilization, its strong heart, Germany, beat fast. Journalist from all over the globe had thronged together to cover the top news story, the Konrad case. The court room doors had been closed for a few hours now. Suddenly, at one o’clock in the afternoon they were pushed open–not to reconvene later on or suspend the proceedings for a later time, though, but to show that everything was over. People expected to see the rich man walk out of the court room handcuffed and escorted by two police officers and guards on his way to prison. But alas, Konrad did walk out, but with his chin up, as usual and as though he had never been arrested. He acted as if he owned the world and as if he was invincible, the winner in the game. He was found guilty, but his sentence shocked the multitude. He was imposed a fine of €10,000,000,000–undoubtedly one the largest amounts that a court had ever sentenced anyone to–and five years of probation. People failed to grasp how he got convicted, but was, nevertheless, did not go behind bars. Was it that the court was powerless against him despite the evidence or was it that Radeberg was too powerful–no one got to know. Truth probably resided not so close to money as to the power and connections the German shareholding titan had . . .
Konrad strutted forward, flanked by his bodyguards, and when the journalists showered him with a summer-storm of questions, his smug smile stuck out a mile.
‘How are you, Mr. Radeberg, how do you feel after the sentence?’ one of the reporters who had clustered in front of the court asked him. The way out of the building was blocked by the journalists and the passers-by who stopped to watch. It was no secret the businessman had supporters who liked him. Despite that, those who hated him outnumbered them and they hardly lacked reasons for that: he terrorized the market economy and had a rather pompous and haughty manner of running his empire that was generally perceived as quite aggressive. Even his so called “good deeds”–investing his company money in the Probe Research Program did not manage to cover up his latest bloopers. The population detested him and booed him for the frauds that came to light, but he was not affected by that at all.
‘I feel wonderful. That’s all that matters to me,’ he said, astounding everyone with his answer.
‘But you’re found guilty, aren’t you embarrassed?’ the journalist went on in the midst of all the commotion.
‘Yes, I was, but everyone makes mistakes and pays the price for that. So do I,’ he chuckled over the microphone and made his way towards his car. The crowd booed him and two bottles of mineral water flew past his head, missing their main target, yet managing to splash water on his back. The rich man halted and started shouting.
‘Come on, more, I want more! Ungrateful morons! You’ll be praying to get back those drops of water you wasted,’ he cried caustically, vexing the bunch even further and making the din grow louder. The police barely managed to keep them out of fight.
‘Why are you talking to the people like that, they haven’t done anything to you?’ asked another reporter who followed him closely with a microphone in hand.
‘We’re all to blame. Me, you, them. But do you know what makes the difference?’ he said arrogantly to the journalist. ‘What makes the difference is that I have the money to get out of this place first, and you, people, citizens, villagers, women and children, foolish little reporters . . . Hahahahaha,’ he roared with laughter, looking like a total lunatic. ‘You, all of you will rot down here, dying of diseases and famine and no one will help you. I think We haven’t thrown enough dust in your eyes, you need more,’ he bawled unable to ever take those words back and erase them.
He got into his car and drove off, leaving everyone in utter shock. No one could fathom why he behaved like that, perhaps he was tired of every living thing or he was just too nervous to be in his right mind. But those words echoed off every TV channel and every radio station, they were heard by many people in the whole world. Konrad did not realize what repercussions this declaration was going to lead to and that was the worst of all. Like a curse, he incurred the wrath of every person. It bred fury in every soul, fury mingled with the desire for revenge and for a purge. In this very moment, an apocalypse was waging, bearing all of is signs and visibility until it finally escalated into a genuine apogee of cruelty . . .
‘Take me to the nearest coffee shop, Richard,’ the rich man told his chauffeur. All the way to the café he could not stop toying with different ways of taking revenge on Hans for making him a laughingstock and for the money he lost. Nevertheless, to his great satisfaction, he was not convicted for his other unscrupulous deeds and for the death he brought to Tehran.
They went in one of the city’s luxurious cafeterias. He got out of the car and sat undisturbed at a table, out in the open air. Everyone glared disgustedly at him as his image popped up everywhere. Shortly after he was served a coffee and his favorite newspaper. He drank the hot drink with great pleasure and carefully checked news. Minutes before he was done scanning the articles he noticed the TV across from him turn off. People had problems with the mobile communication and phone calls were broken. A few indistinct noises that sounded a lot like explosions and crossfire were heard at the distance. The people at the café rose up and stared frightfully in the direction of the noises. The sounds grew louder and louder until the gunfire could be clearly distinguished. The clients panicked and broke into a frenzied run in all directions. The shots were coming from the bottom of the street, close to where the coffee shop was situated . . . Like a tsunami wave they came swelling, innumerable. Some were running, blasting into stores and pharmacies, plundering and killing, others got to smashing cars and stealing all the valuables that were held inside. Sheer insanity, a crowd that had run amok! There was no police presence whatsoever, the resistance put up by the few military officers who still worked for the Ministry, was broken down. Fires raged over the swamping wave of humans. Some threw bottles with flammable liquids all around or tossed them on the people who lived in that neighborhood and who were running and begging for mercy.
Things turned upside down. Pure human hatred had planted itself inside the bigger part of the population. People hated each other, down to the last person. The world had hit rock bottom. Slowly we inflicted ourselves all that misery and there was hardly anything that could withstand it. Doomsday was at full swing. The only response left was a mass purge like another Great Flood which had to annihilate everything so that the f
ew survivors, if there were any, could make a new, clean start. It was not an apocalypse triggered by machines or aliens, but one brought about by our own race and our own behavior . . .
Konrad saw all that and ran for his car, trying to save his neck. His chauffeur drove off in the direction opposite to that from which the merciless judges were approaching. But they came storming the streets from all sides and at once the crowd swamped them. The car halted, or else it had to run over everything that lay ahead of it and then to get stuck about sixty-five feet away in the bodies of the teeming street. Not long after that appeared invaders who tried to smash or turn the armored car on its top, but to no avail. Luck seemed to have run away from Konrad that day. The people had just started moving aside and leaving space for the car to crawl through and get to some nearby tranquil hideout when a barefoot, scruffy-looking man planted himself in the vehicle’s way. The chauffeur got horrorstruck when his eyes fell on the object the stranger was holding: a bottle full with some liquid and ending with a recently lit wick. Richard tromped the gas pedal all the way to the floor in attempt to escape, but the man threw the bottle at them. That odd mixture set the car on fire and began to eat into its armored body. The automobile switched to evacuation mode, opened the doors and ejected the two passengers, rolling away at a safe distance and running over a few people. A lump of horror lodged in the middle of Radeberg’s throat. He was stuck in the crowd, totally powerless. Everyone glowered at him forming a group around him and his chauffeur. The two neat suits elicited the onlookers’ vengeance and evil thoughts. A new master had appeared in the world–the masses. They were a beast full of undying rage and unquenchable thirst for revenge.
‘Konrad, Konrad Radeberg!’ a half-naked woman at the front rows cried and pointed a finger at him. In a few seconds cold sweat broke out over the German’s entire body and suddenly appeared two more men who recognized his face. They pulled knives out of their pockets and lunged for him.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 26
